China invests in Iran’s major petrochemical project

Construction of a petrochemical complex, which would be the world's largest urea fertilizer and ammonium production unit, was officially started on Saturday in cooperation with Chinese investors. Iranian private sector and the Chinese entities are to invest 4 billion dollars in the Masjed-Soleyman Petrochemical Complex, southern Iran the Mehr news agency reported. The production unit is planned to be constructed in 40 months and is projected to produce 4 million tons of urea fertilizer and ammonium per year, the report said. The Chinese part would finance 85% of the required investment. The National Petrochemical Company (NPC) of Iran has announced recently that the country's petrochemical production will experience a considerable growth by March 2012. NPC Director Abdolhossein Bayat said that Iran's annual production of various petrochemical products will hit 60 million tons from the current figure of 42 million tons by the end of the current Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 19, 2012, Press TV reported. Bayat said that the increase is due to the implementation of a number of petrochemical projects with a capacity of eight million tons and a rise in the feed of the country's petrochemical complexes. He went on to say that about 45 percent of the total production of the country is exported, adding that the Islamic Republic exported 18 million tons of petrochemical goods worth $11.6 billion in the previous Iranian calendar year. Iran has expanded the range and volume of its petrochemical products significantly over the past few years, and the NIPC has become the second largest producer and exporter of petrochemicals in the Middle East